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Islamophobia has always been a significant issue in the land of religious freedom and has increased since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Students will need a background introduction on this problem in society before addressing the main character’s struggle of fitting in and identity. This link includes a political cartoon that demonstrates how xenophobes justify their prejudices towards Islamic peoples. An essay and videos further defining and explaining Islamophobia are also included below the cartoon.

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Stereotypes exist due to ignorance about a group of people. Students should be introduced to an accurate portrayal of Muslim-Americans that defies their preconceived notions. The video provided is an 18 minute educational video that includes experts speaking about American society’s relationship with Muslim citizens and residents. In between experts, stories of real Muslim-Americans are shown.

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Internalized hate on some aspect of our identity based on the perceived beliefs of society is detrimental to an individual and society as a whole. Internalized hate only further aids ignorance towards groups of people. The given link provided statistics about internalized islamophobia in America and identity struggles that Muslim-Americans are facing today.

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Teens often best relate to other teens because it is easier to understand a person’s point of view when it comes from your own age group. Expose students to real content they relate to. The link provided shows Muslim teen girls performing a spoken word piece: Wake Up America. It discusses real stories of the Muslim experience in the United States from their eyes.

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“These are my people / I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow” These are a few of the lines in this heartfelt cultural poem representing Pakistani-American Muslims. Throughout the poem, the author paints vignettes of individuals in this culture, highlighting the diversity and humanity and eliminating the group stereotypes. It can establish some common ground with students and bring feelings of similar experiences to represent unity.

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http://islamphobia.wordpress.com
Islamophobia has become a topic of increasing sociological and political importance. Islamophobia is irrational fear of or prejudice against Islam, rather than simple criticism, prejudice against, or hatred or fear of Islam or Muslims . Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written criticism came from Christians, prior to the ninth century, many of whom viewed Islam as a radical Christian heresy. Later there appeared criticism within and also from Jewish writers and from ecclesiastical Christians. Wikipediahe term seems to date back to the late 1980s,but came into common usage after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States to refer to types of political dialogue that appeared prejudicially resistant to pro-Islamic argument.
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Muslim Non Muslim Relationship

The word Islamophobia is a neologism formed from Islam and. The compound form Islamo- contains the thematic vowel, and is found in earlier coinages such as Islamo-Christianfrom the 19th century. As opposed to being a psychological or individualistic phobia, according to associate professor of religion Peter Gottschalk, "Islamophobia" connotes a social anxiety about Islam and Muslims

In 1997, the British Runnymede Trust defined Islamophobia as the "dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, to the fear and dislike of all Muslims," stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. It includes the perception that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideologyrather than a religion. Professor Anne Sophie Roald writes that steps were taken toward official acceptance of the term in January 2001 at the "Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance", where Islamophobia was recognized as a form of intolerance alongside Xenophobia and Antisemitism.

A perceived trend of increasing "Islamophobia" during the 2000s has been attributed by some commentators to the September 11 attacks, while others associate it with the rapidly growing Muslims populations in the Western world, especially in Western Europe, due to both immigration and high fertility rate. In May 2002, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), a European Union watchdog, released a report entitled "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001", which described an increase in Islamophobia-related incidents in European member states post-9/11. Although the term is widely recognized and used, it has not been without controversy.

Perceptions: The negative perceptions highlighted through western media campaign are:

1. Islam is projected as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.

2. It is seen as separate and "other." It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.

3. It is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.

4. It is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in aclash of civilizations.

5. It is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.

6. Criticisms made of "the West" by Muslims are rejected out of hand.

7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.

8. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal.

Some scholar opine that "Islamophobia", through a new terminology, has always been present in Western countries and cultures. In the last two decades, it has become accentuated, explicit and extreme." An observatory report on Islamophobia by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference similarly states that Islamophobia has existed for as long as Islam itself.

Criticism of concept:

The concept of Islamophobia has been criticized on several grounds.Some critics argue that it is real, but is just another form of racism and does not require its own category,while others argue that it is used to censor criticism, that its use threatens free speech, or is used to silence issues relating to Muslim populations in Western countries.

Some opponents argue that Islamophobia is justified. Others, such as Edward Said, consider Islamophobia as it is evinced in Orientalism to be a 'secret sharer' in a more general antisemitic Western tradition. However, Daniel Pipes says that "'Islamophobia' deceptively conflates two distinct phenomena: fear of Islam and fear of radical Islam."

The concept of Islamophobia as formulated by Runnymede is criticized by professor Fred Halliday on several levels. He writes that the target of hostility in the modern era is not Islam and its tenets as much as it is Muslims and their actions, suggesting that a more accurate term would be "Anti-Muslimism." Poole responds by noting that many Islamophobic discourses attack what they perceive to be Islam's tenets, while Miles and Brown write that Islamophobia is usually based upon negative stereotypes about Islam which are then translated into attacks on Muslims. Halliday argues that the concept of Islamophobia unwittingly plays into the hands of extremists.

Neuroscientist and best selling author Sam Harris has openly criticized the term Islamophobia in an article stating:

There is no such thing as Islamophobia. Bigotry and racism exist, of course-and they are evils that all well-intentioned people must oppose. And prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, purely because of the accident of their birth, is despicable. But like all religions, Islam is a system of ideas and practices. And it is not a form of bigotry or racism to observe that the specific tenets of the faith pose a special threat to civil society. Nor is it a sign of intolerance to notice when people are simply not being honest about what they and their co-religionists believe.
Responses to criticism

Edward Said, in his essay Islam Through Western Eyes, stated that the general basis of Orientalist thought forms a study structure in which Islam is placed in an inferior position as an object of study. He claims the existence of a very considerable bias in Orientalist writings as a consequence of the scholars' cultural make-up. He claims Islam has been looked at with a particular hostility and fear due to many obvious religious, psychological and political reasons, all deriving from a sense "that so far as the West is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also a late-coming challenge to Christianity."

Karen Armstrong, tracing what she believes to be the West's long history of hostility toward Islam, finds in Muhammad's teachings a theology of peace and tolerance. Armstrong holds that the "holy war" urged by the Qur'an alludes to each Muslim's duty to fight for a just, decent society.

William Montgomery Watt who in his book Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman addresses . He claims that "Of all the world's great men none has been so much maligned as Muhammad [pnuh]." Watt argues on a basis of moral relativism that Muhammad should be judged by the standards of his own time and country rather than "by those of the most enlightened opinion in the West today."
Cathy Young of Reason Magazine claimed that the growing trend of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiment stemmed from an atmosphere where such criticism is popular. While stating that the terms " Islamophobia " and "anti-Muslim bigotry" are often used in response to legitimate criticism of fundamentalist Islam and problems within Muslim culture, she claimed "the real thing does exist, and it frequently takes the cover of anti-jihadism."

Deepa Kumar, the author of Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike, in her article titled 'Fighting Islamophobia: A Response to Critics' says " The history of Islam is no more violent than the history of any of the other major religions of the world. Perhaps my critics haven't heard of the Crusades - the religious wars fought by European Christians from the 11th to the 13th centuries" referring to the brutality of the crusades and then contrasting them to forbidding of acts of vengeance and violence by the Sultan of Egypt Saladin, after he successfully retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Speaking on the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy (which resulted in more than 100 deaths, all together), she says "The Danish cartoon -- is nothing if not the visual depiction of the racist diatribe that Islam is inherently violent. To those who can't understand why this argument is racist, let me be clear: when you take the actions of a few people and generalize it to an entire group - all Muslims, all Arabs - that's racism. When a whole group of people are discriminated against and demonized because of their religion or regional origin, that's racism." And "...Arabs and Muslims are being scapegoated and demonized to justify a war that is ruining the lives of millions."
Edward Said, in his essay Islam Through Western Eyes, stated that the general basis of Orientalist thought forms a study structure in which Islam is placed in an inferior position as an object of study. He claims the existence of a very considerable bias in Orientalist writings as a consequence of the scholars' cultural make-up. He claims Islam has been looked at with a particular hostility and fear due to many obvious religious, psychological and political reasons, all deriving from a sense "that so far as the West is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also a late-coming challenge to Christianity."
More on Islamophobia Google search Videos on Islamophobia at Youtube
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150 FAQs- Islam, Quran

After 911 it has become trendy to criticise Muslim and Islam for all the wrongs in the world, in fact Communism foe has been replaced by Islam. Though Many misconceptions exist in the West (representing Christianity) about Islam and Muslims, which were deliberately created by their clergy and medieval rulers to disguise the true message of Islam to justify their hostility towards Islam. W. Montgomery Watt, a Western scholar observed : ' Among the world's major religions it is certainly Islam that the West has the most difficulty in approaching objectively. The reason for this are rooted in past history. Because of the crusades in the 12 thand 13 th centuries many people in the West wanted the religion of Islam to be better known. But the image they portrayed of Islam can quite accurately be qualified as 'distorted'. Western opinion about Islam and Muslims was based for centuries on the distorted image', clearly visible in this video:

Effort has been made to identify the major misconceptions [150 questions] created in the minds of people around the world under the influence of hostile propaganda and provide authentic answers with references from Islamic resources.

150 Most Frequently Asked Questions on Quran and Islam Answered

FAQs

Women Inferiority:
Conclusion Videos Click here to Download now as PDF Book

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http://islamphobia.wordpress.com Islamophobia has become a topic of increasing sociological and political importance. Islamophobia is irrational fear of or prejudice against Islam, rather than simple criticism, prejudice against, or hatred or fear of Islam or Muslims . Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages.

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Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

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This video offers a look inside the beliefs and attitudes of Muslims in America; it features data from Pew Research Center's 2017 survey, as well as the personal stories of Muslims from across the United States.

For more information, read the survey report: " U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream. "

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This video offers a look inside the beliefs and attitudes of Muslims in America; it features data from Pew Research Center's 2017 survey, as well as the personal stories of Muslims from across the United States. For more information, read the survey report: " U.S.

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View all posts

Islam has a centuries long tradition of inspiring its adherents to contribute to humanity based on conviction in its tenets. Previous generations of Muslims were on the forefront of contributing to medicine, philosophy, architecture, and governance among other areas. With the rise of Islamophobia, Islam has been cast as irrational, incompatible with modern civilization, and inherently violent. This has put Western Muslims in a defensive position in which they constantly have to justify their convictions, and fight off the doubts and insecurities that arise in such a climate. One of the most understudied and underestimated impacts of Islamophobia is the ingestion of problematic notions about the religion by Muslims themselves, particularly those of the younger generation who are experiencing multiple attacks against their faith. This paper documents the harmful effects of Islamophobic rhetoric on the religious identity and perceptions of Muslim youth in an urban American setting. Using qualitative interviews and expert analysis, it also explores solutions for how to counter Islamophobic narratives.

Read the full article here.

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Infographic - Internalized Islamophobia: Exploring the Faith and Identity Crisis of American Muslim Youth

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Islam has a centuries long tradition of inspiring its adherents to contribute to humanity based on conviction in its tenets. Previous generations of Muslims were on the forefront of contributing to medicine, philosophy, architecture, and governance among other areas. With the rise of Islamophobia, Islam has been cast as irrational, incompatible with modern civilization, and ...

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Muslim Girls Making Change perform "Wake Up America" | Vermont Edition

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these are my people & I find

them on the street & shadow

through any wild all wild

a dance of strangers in my blood

the old woman's sari dissolving to wind

bindi a new moon on her forehead

the star of her to my breast

the toddler dangling from stroller

hair a fountain of dandelion seed

at the bakery I claim them too

the sikh uncle at the airport

who apologizes for the pat

down the muslim man who abandons

his car at the traffic light drops

to his knees at the call of the azan

& the muslim man who sips

good whiskey at the start of maghrib

the lone khala at the park

pairing her kurta with crocs

my people my people I can't be lost

when I see you my compass

my compass a muslim teenager

snapback & high-tops gracing

mashallah I claim them all

if they come for you they

come for me too in the dead

aunties step out on the sand

their dupattas turn to ocean

a colony of uncles grind their palms

& a thousand jasmines bell the air

my people I follow you like constellations

we hear the glass smashing the street

& the nights opening their dark

our names this country's wood

for the fire my people my people

the long years we've survived the long

years yet to come I see you map

my sky the light your lantern long

ahead & I follow I follow

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If They Should Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar | Poetry Magazine

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.2

Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.2

Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.4

Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1 - Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7 - Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.2

Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.1

Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.1

Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

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Teacher-led and peer-supported

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Teacher-led

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Teacher-led, Independent

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Teacher-led, independent

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Teacher-led, Independent or peer-supported

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at grade level

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at or above grade level

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At Grade Level

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Teacher will ask open-ended questions about fears and lead the guided discussion toward Islamophobia. Address main points relevant to the class on the provided link. In pairs and then as a whole class, analyze the political cartoon with political cartoon worksheets of the teacher’s choosing.

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After watching the video as a class, have students take a moment to discuss what they watched with the people around them. Then, have students stand up. The teacher will have prepared statements they want to discuss pertinent to the video. The teacher will say a statement and tell students to go to a corner of the room based on their level of agreement/disagreement with the statement. Teacher will pick a person from each corner to share why they chose that corner of the room for each statement.

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While reading the anchor text, the teacher can introduce the concept of internalized hate. Because we are frustrated with how we are treated by others or frustrated with aspects of our culture, we sometimes ignorant those viewpoints and try to separate ourselves from our culture. The teacher will show students the statistics and read random ones to stir discussion. Students can choose one statistic from the infographic and use it to create a visual essay (through their own infographic or on paper) establishing a belief or argument after reading their chosen statistic.

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The teacher will play the video for the whole class and comment on how the girls were courageous to take a stand for their rights and what they believe in. Encourage students to take a stand on a topic of their own choice. Provide a short list of prompts and ask students to choose a topic that they feel strongly about. Have students draw a barometer on their paper and an arrow pointing to their level of agreement or disagreement on a statement. Then, have students explain their stance (arrow) in a 1 page or more timed journal entry.

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Along with the teacher, students can examine the lines in the poem, particularly the different individuals the author describes. The teacher will have students circle descriptions of each individual to separate the vignettes. The teacher will ask open-ended questions and ask how we can identify with some of the individuals in the poem. Impact of the poem will be addressed before students begin their activity. Students will choose an individual described in the poem and recreate an image that matches the author’s description. Students may work with a partner on this assignment. This activity is intended to be done after studying literary devices.

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Analyzing Political Cartoons Worksheets

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Four Corners Activity

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Four Corners - Skills and Strategies

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Another idea in our Skills and Strategies series, the Four-Corners technique can be used by any teacher on any level with any material - it's all in how you craft it.

Below, you'll find a description of the strategy and several suggestions for putting it together with Times content.

Have you tried Four Corners, or something like it? How did it go? Let us know in the comments.

The Four-Corners Strategy

One take on the Four Corners technique, from The Teaching Channel

In Four Corners, students move around the room to show their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement or statements on a particular issue. Each corner is labeled with one of four signs - Strongly Agree; Agree; Disagree; Strongly Disagree. As the teacher reads a series of statements about the issue, students move to one of the four corners to show their point of view.

The strategy ensures that all students participate, and it gets a lesson "on its feet," which can be especially helpful for kinesthetic learners. It can be used as a warm-up - a kind of "anticipation guide" to the ideas they'll be studying - or as a culminating activity. Teachers might also use the strategy at both the beginning and the end of a unit to see how students' opinions change after they learn more.

Another way to organize it? Instead of using the four corners of a classroom, make an imaginary line across the room. Make one end "strongly agree," the opposite end "strongly disagree" and the middle "no opinion." Every other position on the line shows degrees of agreement or disagreement, depending on how closely a student positions him or herself to the two extremes at the ends. (Facing History and Ourselves calls this the "barometer activity" and explains other nuances here.)

If you choose to pose a series of statements to the class, you might start out with sentences that are more general and perhaps less controversial, then get to more specific or more complex statements as you move on.

Give students time to think after you read each one, but ask them to move in silence at first. Discussion is saved for later. The last statement might be the most provocative, or the one that gets most closely to the issue with which you would like for them to wrestle. For example, a series of statements about climate change might begin with a sentence like "Climate is different from weather" and end with something like "Climate change is a hoax."

Once students are in their chosen corners in reaction to the final statement, each group can discuss its point of view, and select a representative who will speak on behalf of the whole group. Then all four corners might take turns stating their cases. If you are doing this after students have read a text, you might ask that each group supply evidence from it to support the students' thoughts.

The teacher might then read the final statement again and see if, as a result of discussion, any students have changed their minds. If so, they should move to a new corner.

To take this activity further, you might have students do the exercise in the role of a character or a historical figure or a member of a different demographic. For instance, in the climate change example, students might be assigned the roles of particular political figures, scientists or other stakeholders who might have nuanced thoughts on the topic.

Below, we show how Four Corners might work with issues covered in The Times.
Four Corners and The Times

Four Corners can be used with content in any subject area and at any level you teach. We at the Learning Network have used it in lesson plans on:

But you don't have to rely on what we have done, of course. Here's how to do it yourself if you're interested in bringing current events and debates into your classroom this way.
How to Create Four Corners Statements From Room for Debate or Student Opinion Pieces
To quickly find Times materials that work well, you might look through our Student Opinion posts, or our 301 Prompts for Argumentative Writing collection. Each question links to a free Times article on that topic, and you can easily adapt our questions into statements or add your own.

Another fruitful source: the Room for Debate forum, in which experts weigh in on different current events topics.

For instance, the question Do We Need to Change the Way We Raise Boys? would almost certainly create impassioned debate in most classrooms. In the Room for Debate post, five people discuss the question, bringing up a wide variety of points about gender and identity, culture, biology and parenting.

A teacher wishing to use this topic could tweak statements from each of the debaters and quickly create a Four Corners activity. A few examples might be:

We are living in confusing times in terms of gender identity.

If someone told me or a boy I knew to "be a man," I would know what they meant.

From rap lyrics to video games, there is a great deal of misogyny in today's popular culture.

Boys face contempt if they like "girlie" things.

The concept of "a real man" is a negative one today.

From here, there are many places to go. After they read the full Room for Debate post, they might write their own pieces; interview others for a survey; or do any of these ideas in our lesson plan, Constructing Arguments: 'Room for Debate' and the Common Core Standards, or in this Reader Idea, Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills.

Another example? We have noticed on our blog that the Student Opinion questions that consistently elicit the most comments concern students' use of technology and social media and the nuances of their lives online. There are many, many Times articles and Student Opinion questions on this broad topic, but here is an example of how to use a recent one, " Addicted to Distraction," paired with one of our most popular Student Opinion questions, " Does Technology Make Us More Alone? "

Here are just a few examples of statements that might be derived from these two readings:

Technology is getting in the way of our ability to communicate face to face.

Smartphones will continue to intrude more into our private and social spaces as time goes on.

Documenting experiences and putting them on social media takes away from living in the moment.

Technology has shortened people's attention spans.

Reality is often less interesting than what's on the Internet.

Social media can be dangerous.

Teenagers spend too much time on screens.

Have your class do the Four Corners exercise before they read more on the topic since, like the gender example above, they will certainly already have opinions. Afterward, have students sit down and quickly freewrite or journal their reactions to the exercise, and list some of the points that came up about which they had strong reactions.

This might then lead to a formal piece of writing - one which, perhaps, they would like to send in for our annual Student Editorial Contest ( coming in Feb. 2016). Or, like any rich subject, could lead to students developing their own inquiry questions for further research.
Sensitive Topics and the Four Corners Exercise

Though some of the most hotly debated topics on social media might also make for rich Four Corner exercises, because the strategy demands that students publicly take a stand, teachers should be very careful in choosing topics and crafting statements.

As a Times tech columnist, Farhad Manjoo, wrote this week in " The Internet's Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening ":

If you've logged on to Twitter and Facebook in the waning weeks of 2015, you've surely noticed that the Internet now seems to be on constant boil. Your social feed has always been loud, shrill, reflexive and ugly, but this year everything has been turned up to 11. The Islamic State's use of the Internet is perhaps only the most dangerous manifestation of what, this year, became an inescapable fact of online life: The extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the Internet is terrible.

Though you may be talking about, say, the 2016 election, gun control, race and policing or any of the other important issues that were in the news in 2015 and that many teachers want to connect to curriculum, there are ways to make sure the exercise promotes, as Mr. Manjoo writes, "nuance, complexity, or flirting with the middle ground" rather than outrage.

For example, if you look at the sample statements we posed for the pieces about gender and technology, above, you will see that none of them are personal. Instead of a statement reading, "I spend too much time on screens," we posed it as, "People spend too much time on screens." Of course, each teacher knows what is appropriate for his or her class, and in some contexts, like an advisory group, personal statements might be the more fertile way to go. It is often easier, however, for students to take a stance that is more about society as a whole than directly about him or herself.

You might also take the statements you will use for Four Corners and hand them out first on paper, asking each student to anonymously rate their reactions to each. Collect the sheets and tally them, then let the class know the results. At the end of the unit, you might then ask students to react to the same statements in a public, Four Corners exercise since by then they will have read and discussed the topic more deeply and may be more comfortable expressing their opinions this way. (Make sure you save the original tally for each statement so you can show them how their opinions have changed - or haven't.)
Related
Our series Drama Strategies to Use With Any Day's Times

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Skills and Strategies | The Four-Corners Exercise to Inspire Writing and Discussion

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Another idea in our Skills and Strategies series, the Four-Corners technique can be used by any teacher on any level with any material - it's all in how you craft it. Below, you'll find a description of the strategy and several suggestions for putting it together with Times content.

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Article

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Internalized Oppression: We Need to Stop Hating Ourselves

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Ever heard of “internalized oppression”? Read on.

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Free Graphics Tool

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Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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Barometer: Taking a Stand

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This teaching strategy was originally designed for use in a face-to-face setting. For tips and guidance on how to use this teaching strategy in a remote or hybrid learning environment, view our Taking Barometer Online video and our Take a Stand Routine.
The Barometer teaching strategy helps students share their opinions by asking them to line up along a continuum based on their position on an issue. It is especially useful when you want to discuss an issue about which students have a wide range of opinions. Because a Barometer activity gets many arguments out on the table, it can be an effective pre-writing exercise before an essay assignment.

1. Prepare the Space
Identify a space in the classroom where students can stand in a line or a U-shape. Place "Strongly Agree" and "Strongly Disagree" signs at opposite ends of a continuum in your room. Alternatively, you can post any statement at one end and its opposite at the other end of the line.

2. Contract with Students
Set a contract for this activity. Since it deals with students literally putting themselves and their opinions on the line, it has the potential to promote outbursts that result from some individuals not understanding how classmates can hold whatever opinion they hold. Reiterate your class rules about respect for the opinions and voices of others, and call for students to be honest but not insulting. Re-address ways to constructively disagree with one another, and require that when students offer their opinion or a defense of their stance, they speak using "I" language rather than the more accusatory "you."

3. Students Formulate an Opinion
Give students a few minutes to reflect on a prompt or prompts that call for agreement or disagreement with a particular statement. You might have students respond to the prompt(s) in their journals.

4. Students "Take a Stand"
Ask students to stand on the spot along the line that represents their opinion, telling them that if they stand at either extreme, they are absolute in their agreement or disagreement. They may stand anywhere between the two extremes, depending on how much they do or do not agree with the statement.

5. Students Explain Positions
Once students have lined themselves up, ask them in turn to explain why they have chosen to stand where they are standing. Encourage students to refer to evidence and examples when defending their stance. It is probably best to alternate from one end to the middle to the other end, rather than allowing too many voices from one stance to dominate. After about three or four viewpoints are heard, ask if anyone wishes to move. Encourage students to keep an open mind; they are allowed to move if someone presents an argument that alters where they want to stand on the line. Run the activity until you think that most or all voices have been heard, making sure that no one person dominates.

6. Debrief
There are many ways you can debrief this exercise. You can have students reflect in their journals about how the activity changed or reinforced their original opinion. Or you can chart the main "for" and "against" arguments on the board as a whole-class activity.

Forced Decision: Yes, No, or Undecided: Read a statement aloud. Rather than have a continuum for agreement, require students to make a decision about whether they "agree" with the statement, "do not agree," or "are unsure" about their agreement. If students agree with the statement, instruct them to move to one side of the room. If students disagree with the statement, instruct them to move to the other side of the room. Designate a place for students to stand near the middle if they are undecided or unsure. Have students explain why they are standing where they are standing. If after hearing another student's position a student would like to move across the room, allow for this movement.

Post-It Notes Barometer: Draw a continuum on the board. Ask students to place a sticky note on the spot along the continuum that represents their opinion. Then have students discuss what they notice about the collection of notes. This variation is less about individuals explaining their point of view than about illustrating the range of agreement or disagreement in the class.

Presenting Different Perspectives: The Barometer strategy can be used to present the different perspectives of historical figures, schools of thought, and literary characters. Assign students a perspective to represent. Then give them time to research or study the ideas of this person or group in relation to the question being studied. When you frame a statement, ask students to stand along the line at a position that represents how their assigned individual or group would respond. For example, you could use this activity to show how different philosophers or groups have responded to the statement "Individual freedom is more important than protecting the needs of the larger community."

Remote Learning: Taking Barometer Online: Learn how to implement the Barometer teaching strategy in an online learning environment. This strategy asks students to take a stand on an issue in an online class discussion.

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Barometer: Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues

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This teaching strategy was originally designed for use in a face-to-face setting. For tips and guidance on how to use this teaching strategy in a remote or hybrid learning environment, view our Taking Barometer Online video and our Take a Stand Routine.

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Argumentative Writing Prompts

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About the Author

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Poet, screenwriter, educator, and performer Fatimah Asghar is a South-Asian American Muslim writer. Fatimah Asghar is the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us (One World/Random House, 2018) and the chapbook After (Yes Yes Books, 2015). She is also the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, a web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Her work has been featured on news outlets such as PBS, NPR, Time, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, and others. In 2011 she created a spoken word poetry group in Bosnia and Herzegovina called REFLEKS while serving a Fulbright fellowship, where she studied theater in post-genocidal countries.

Asghar is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and a Kundiman Fellow. In 2017, she was a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and listed on Forbes 's 30 under 30 list.

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Poet, screenwriter, educator, and performer Fatimah Asghar is a South-Asian American Muslim writer. Fatimah Asghar is the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us (One World/Random House, 2018) and the chapbook After (Yes Yes Books, 2015). She is also the writer and co-creator of the...

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Poetry Review

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Photo by Cassidy Kristiansen, courtesy of One World/Random House.

Fatimah Asghar may be best known as the co-creator of the web series Brown Girls, which followed the lives of two queer, brown women with refreshing honesty. But she's also a celebrated performing poet who has just released her first full collection of poetry, If They Come For Us. In it, Asghar uses the India-Pakistan partition as both historical and personal material with which to mine her family's history and question the myth of national identity. With loaded reflections on growing up in the US as a Muslim and an orphan, she also vividly articulates the sometimes fragmented nature of diasporic existence.

Below, find three short excerpts from If They Come For Us, alongside a conversation with Asghar on history, who she writes for, and the disconnect between the US and South Asia.

BROADLY: How would you articulate what this collection is about?
FATIMAH ASGHAR: This book is about this thread around Partition, which is when colonial Britain left South Asia in 1947 and the region just devolved into violence as India and Pakistan were constructed. A lot of it interrogates different aspects of identity, and particularly thinking about national identity. My parents' generation-my mom and her mom and her family were born in Kashmir, lived in Kashmir, were Kashmiri, were British colonial subjects, then became Indian, then became Pakistani, then became British again when they lived in England, and then became American. So there's this way in which national identity was so transient in the generation above me; and then also in my own identity. I was born in America and grew up here, but I was in seventh grade when September 11 happened, and I feel like the subsequent waves of islamophobia that have hit throughout my entire life have just been a real indicator of being American but also not being America. The book also deals a lot with inherited trauma-my parents died when I was very young-and being an orphan, and trying to navigate what a lot of things mean, what sexuality means, what nationhood means, all of these different things as you are coming up in America.

When did you first start learning about the Partition?
I first really encountered it in college. I went to public school my whole life until college and we never learned about Partition. There was, a sentence like, "Gandhi led India to freedom nonviolently," which is not true. Partition was one of the worst moments of violence in the 1900s. When you're thinking about 14 million refugees and 2-3 million people murdered in a short few months, that's a really huge moment that is just really not talked about that much.

What kind of research went into writing this?
A lot. I read a lot about Partition, I read a lot of different history books. ... And talking to my family and doing research on random things-just the amount of hours I spent online. But it didn't feel like research in the sense of being like, I am now sitting down to research this project. It felt like, this is something that really matters to me, and it has been something I have read about since I found out about it and will continue to consume and read about.

To me, the book is very personal. It's not a historical document. It's a book of poems. But there's also a way in which, when you're writing about history, you don't want to get stuff wrong. Partition is so delicate, and I'd read books and be able to tell that the books are blaming certain people for what happened and it was this thing where I didn't want to blame anyone. I think it was a really complicated event and there was a lot of horror on a lot of different sides, and so it was just really important to me that I not do that. But also, it's a personal book and I can't remove my identity and my family's history from that book either, so it's kind of about leaning into the things that were personal about it to me.

It feels like there's a clear sense of fracturedness in the writing, weaving together history and personal memories in a way that feels very specific to someone who is part of a diaspora.
Yeah, absolutely. One of the guiding words throughout the entire book is this idea of partition and fragmentation. That comes up in almost every single poem, even the ones that aren't about Partition. A poem is about a fragment; it's about this one moment distilled down. So stylistically, the book really leans into that and that safety of being like: This is complicated and it's OK to tell small parts of it at a time versus having to tell everything and have it be all of the things all at once. That was something that gave me a lot of solace when I was constructing the book.

Do you feel like, personally, poetry has a particular utility in doing that kind of work of weaving together a portrait of a past or a personhood?
Yeah, absolutely. Poetry, for me, has been such a way of understanding myself and certain things about myself. People are complicated, and you can have a lot of different emotions and a lot of different sides of you all at the same time. ...I think that poetry really does lend itself to fragmented exploration of self and personhood.

When you were writing, were you thinking about needing to provide certain context for readers who maybe don't have the knowledge about Partition?
Yeah, I felt like I needed to. And part of it was that I didn't even really know about Partition until I was in college-and I'm South Asian, my family lived through Partition. And the majority of my friends did not know what Partition was. ... I come from a performance background, so I perform my work, and I've had direct conversations with my audience about work. It's not like I'm creating in a bubble and I don't know who I'm writing for. And so, often, when I would go to stuff and do a poem about Partition or whatever, people would need context. They would not get it or they would want to know more. And working with high school students, I felt that too. So it was a thing where I was like, yeah I want to provide part of that context. For me, I won't italicize Urdu words I use because I am centering Muslim and South Asian people in my work. So if there's a reference to Islam, I'm not going to italicize it. And I think that's OK...but what I didn't want was for people to feel like they needed to look up every historical reference about every little thing in the book because I think that stunts the experience of reading.

I feel like when you're writing about identity and trying to center a specific audience but also wanting to make sure your work has an impact beyond that, it's always a give and take, like this difficult dance.
Yeah, and even a lot of South Asian people don't really know about or talk about Partition. I worked with young South Asian students and they didn't know about Partition and I was like, I understand, you're like 17 in 2018, your parents maybe don't talk about that with you. That's not your fault that our history is not taught in school. You have to do a lot of work to find that history outside of standard American education, and I know that, because that was my experience with it, so I'm not going to fault or shame anyone for not knowing that either.

There's also a sense of disconnect throughout the book about what it's like to live in America as a person who belongs to diaspora, with this particular sense that you care about events happening in another part of the world that the people immediately around you aren't even aware of.
Yeah, I feel that disconnect a lot. It's an interesting thing being an immigrant or being from an immigrant family in the US because there's not really a lot of places that feel like home. The US doesn't feel like home and you're constantly reminded that you don't belong here, but also your home country isn't home either, and you're just kind of in this void where you don't really have a lot of spaces that you feel like can actually be yours.
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"If They Come for Us" feels like it has a very specific tone to it. What was the intention behind choosing that title?
The original title was "Today We're American." In my head, what that title conveyed was, today, we're American, tomorrow, we might not be. But when I talked to my editor about it, she was like, it kinda rings patriotic in a way that you may not want it to.... Also, the book is not about Americanism, really. There's a poem in the book called "If They Come For Us" and to me, that's the spirit that I want the book to be in. ... To me, what's really important is that pledge of solidarity. We have to show up for each other, and that's really what that poem is about.

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Fatimah Asghar Questions What It Means to Be American

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Photo by Cassidy Kristiansen, courtesy of One World/Random House. Fatimah Asghar may be best known as the co-creator of the web series Brown Girls , which followed the lives of two queer, brown women with refreshing honesty. But she's also a celebrated performing poet who has just released her first full collection of poetry, If They Come For Us .